Friday, December 20, 2013

Dust Tactics Work posted

Jeremiah from http://www.front-toward-enemy.us was so nice to post some of my work regarding Dust tactics i.e. the Lothar II and Heinrich II Axis walkers :)

The entire post can be found here:



I sadly didn´t have much time lately to post my work on my blog, hopefully I can take some pictures of new stuff soon...

Either way have a very nice X-Mas and Seasons Greetings! :-)

Cheers
invivos

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Star Trek Attack Wing coming soon

Well our gaming group has a new game to try out that is Star Trek Attack Wing! This game shares many features with SW X-Wing and we recently had our first test games which were some fun, however there is a little space for improvement and balancing.  

Sadly the nicely sculped Star Trek pre-painted ships are not up to my liking so I chose to repaint the entire fleet, pictures of these will follow soon. 

Additionaly I already scratchbuilt some Borg ships i.e. the Borg Cube and some Borg Probes untill the Borg are released and I created some early house rules for them. Pics of the Borg will also follow shortly. So until further notice stay tuned and:

"PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED."


Cheers
invivos

Friday, August 30, 2013

X-Wing Miniatures game: Dash Rendar´s OUTRIDER YT-2400 light freighter (scratchbuilt)

X-Wing Miniatures game: The next new scratchbuilt ship from my home based "shipyards" is the Rebel faction Outrider YT-2400 light freighter!

Fluff (source Wookieepedia): The Outrider was a heavily modified YT-2400 light freighter used by the brash smuggler Dash Rendar. Rendar held that his ship was almost as well known as the Millennium Falcon.  One of the first modifications Dash made was to replace the original engines with three KonGar KGDefender military-grade ion engines. When Rendar could not avoid combat, the Outrider was more than capable of holding its own. The ship was armed with a pair of Dymek heavy laser cannons, mounted on dorsal and ventral turrets.

The ship: Well this scratchbuild ship was the most challenging build of a Star Wars ship for me so far. While its shape seems to be rather easy at first glance, the many, many hidden details and undercuts of the hull and the visible internals proved very time consuming and sometimes challenging to recreate. 

I wanted to build this ship for a quite while and it took me about 4 full days to build without painting. The main shape comes from Warmachine game large miniatures bases and some GW flight bases. Tons of details needed to be added to the hull in a sandwich manner and I tried to recreate the ship as close as possible. I have provided some WIP pics too so that you can see the unpainted built. All in all I am however very satisfied with the final result. :-)

Gamewise it´s weaponry is true to the fluff that it has a 180° fire arc of the main laser guns to the front. I wanted to make this ship simelar but also different from the YT-1300 Millenium Falcon in terms of handling that´s why it can also perform barrel rolls as it´s general shape reminds me a alot of a B-Wing crossed with a Millenium Falcon.

Hope you it too!
Cheers
invivos














X-Wing Miniatures game: TIE Experimental M1 (scratchbuilt)

X-Wing Miniatures game: Finally reinforcements for the Imperial fleet have arrived! Imperial scientists have developed the prototype of the TIE Experimental M1 fighter which is armed with a single deadly Turbolaser (yep!).

Fluff (source Wookieepedia): The TIE Experimental M1, also known as the TIE Bizarro, was an experimental member of the TIE series and a part of the TIE Experimental Project. The port pod held the control systems, and the starboard pod held a turbolaser much heavier than the laser cannons equipped on any previous TIE.

The Ship: The TIE M1 was scratchbuild according to the measurements of the TIE fighter and consists mainly of plastic card and parts from the Biotoxin plant kit for the cockpit and weapon pod. I chose to build two fighters at the same time because you can quickly repeat some of the plastic card cutting work while the other model is left to glue e.g. :) So now we have the evil M1 twins!

Rulewise this ship has no basic weapon and is special to my house rule "Turbolaser". The Turbolaser as a weapon must be bought separately for the ship. The rules for the Turbolaser are also intended for bigger ships to handle their multiple large scale (turbo laser) turrets e.g. for frigates, destroyers, etc.


Hope you like the evil twins!

Cheers
invivos








Friday, August 23, 2013

X-Wing Miniatures game: Rebel Transport GR-75 in action!


X-Wing Miniatures game: Well I was very lucky and managed to get my hands on an old toy GR-75 Rebel Transport!  :-D

The rather huge ship was mounted to a custom plastic base and then immediately pushed into frontline combat action!

In a 100 point game to escape from Planet Hoth, it served as the Imperial mission target that had to be destroyed, while the Rebels tried to flee their Transporter in one piece over the opposing table edge.
The Imperial Navy send waves of TIE Bombers and TIE Fighters to attack the transport, whereas the Rebels only had an A-Wing and a B-Wing for escort duty (the Rebel Transport counted in at 30 of their 100 points).

Although the Imperial Navy managed to block the Transports movement and bombarded it with missiles and even laied a bomb in its way, the transport was able to escape severely damaged from the grip of the Imperial Navy shortly after the last threatening TIE Bomber was blown apart! 

Ship design notes: I designed the rules for the GR-75 transport-pilot card with the "Protect"-Action from mission 1 in X-Wing rulebook in mind. Therefore the transport has a defense value of 0 to represent that it is a massive, easy to hit capital size ship. To give the ship/player some sort of defense possibilities, it can however perform an "Evade"-Action. Coupled with a pair of escorting fighters who "protect" (Action) the ship this has turned out to be a very realistic and well functioning game feature. Due to its very long flight base the GR-75 Transport is very fast however (despite its maximum movement being 2, see its flight dial here) so some good movement planning is necessary to keep the Rebel escort fighters close by.

I will paint and weather the Rebel transport too, just need to get some Ink wash as this big ship will eat a lot of paint... ;-)

I will also post two(!) new scratchbuilt ships on the blog soon, so stay tuned until I have taken some pics!


Cheers
invivos




Sunday, July 28, 2013

X-Wing Miniatures game: Rebel Mk2 B-Wing (scratchbuild)

X-Wing Miniatures game: Here is the third ship in todays posting marathon, my scratchbuild and finished Mk2 B-Wing!

The Mk2 B-Wing model was entirely scratchbuild from plasticard with added bits from various sources for details.I think it turned out great :)

Fluff: The Mk2 B-Wing was a technology test bed to improve on the earlier B-Wing´s disadvantages and only saw limited production runs. It featured heavier armour shielding, improved flight controls and modular gun ports.

Below is a scale shot of my gathered Rebel Family: Prototype A-Wing, Y-Wing Mk2 and B-Wing Mk2 joined by a stock X-Wing.

Hope you like this one too!

Cheers
invivos











X-Wing Miniatures game: A-Wing prototype finished (scratchbuild)


X-Wing Miniatures game: Here are pictures of my painted and finished A-Wing Prototype ship :)
 
Fluff: The predecessor of the famous A-Wing, the A-Wing Prototype already featured many design details of the later production series model. 
During the further development some effort was put into improving the flight dynamics and engine shielding by Rebel engineers which lead to the more curvier and compact shape of the later production model. 
The original heavy laser weapons of the prototype were replaced with slightly lighter laser versions to reduce power strain on the A-Wing´s reactor.
 
Gamewise it will serve as an A-Wing and hopefully see some action soon! :D

Cheers
invivos









X-Wing Miniatures game: Imperial TIE Intruder (scratchbuild large ship)

X-Wing Miniatures game: I finally managed to take some pics of one of my newest ships: the Imperial TIE Intruder!

It is a "large" sized ship, the stat cards can be seen below. The TIE Intruder is a multipurpose recon craft that can be modified to various purposes and missions due to its crew slot and the sensor array. Due to its long base size, it is a rather fast ship, though its offensive fire power is limited to only 2, but it has a rear fire arc and it can be outfitted with two missile slots.

It has already seen its first combat (100 point game) and performed well and made a balanced impression in the game. 

Fluff: After the destruction of the first Death Star the Empire pulled all strings to locate and eradicate Rebel bases throughout the galaxy. Darth Vader send numerous scout droids out to monitor any suspicious planets.
To support the spread out Star Destroyer fleet, Lord Vader ordered the engineers to design a fast hyper space capable scout craft that could monitor suspicious places secretly without the need of the massive presence of a star destroyer.
The engineers decided to use the design of the TIE Advanced and the soon to be completed TIE Interceptors as blueprint base. They enlarged the basic design, added massive solar wings for extended operations as well as a crew section and a hyper space drive. For additional protection two laser defense turrets were installed in the rear to hold enemy fighters away until the ship could escape when threatened. Most of the space of the ship was dedicated to sensors and not to weaponry, so to increase the fire power two missile slots were almost added as an afterthought to the ship. 
The design heritage of the TIE Interceptor and TIE Advanced meant the TIE Advanced was fast and also able to barrel roll, but it wasn´t as manouverable as its smaller cousins. 
Usually outfitted with a small set of spy droids the TIE Intruder would release the droids from a safe distance to the target planet. Then the ship would hide awaiting the results of the spy droids and then report back to the main fleet for resupply.
Rebel forces rarely engaged these ships as typically the TIE Intruder was long gone with the recon data before Rebel interceptors arrived. Even when caught the TIE Intruder´s shields, its speed and defense weaponry were able to keep most attacker at bay. 

Hope you like it :) More posts are coming soon!

Cheers
invivos





Monday, July 22, 2013

X-Wing Miniatures game: A-Wing Prototype preview

X-Wing Miniatures game: Here is a sneak preview of my newest sratchbuild creation: the A-Wing Prototype for the Rebels!

Fluff: The predecessor of the famous A-Wing the A-Wing Prototype features many details of the later production series model. Some effort was put into improving the flight dynamics and engine shielding by Rebel engineers which lead to the more curvier shape of the production model. Laser Weapons were replaced with slightly lighter versions to reduce power strain on the reactor.

Hope you like! It´s gonna be painted tomorrow hopefully :D

Oh and the blog got 5000 site hits already! :D Thank you very much for supporting my work!

Cheers
invivos

Monday, July 15, 2013

X-Wing Miniatures Game: Imperial TIE Intruder teaser

X-Wing Miniatures game: Today I show you a little sneak peak of my newest ship creation: the Imperial TIE Intruder!

As usual it´s a completely scratchbuild ship made from plastic card and bits. I will make a full post in the next days when I hopefully find some time to take pics of the ship. In the mean time the TIE Intruder might face its first battle soon! :)

So stay tuned!  Cheers Invivos

Friday, June 21, 2013

X-Wing miniatures game: Correlian Courier Corvette (scratchbuild)

X-Wing miniatures game:

Today I present you the newest addition to the Rebel forces: the scratchbuild Correlian Courier Corvette!

Fluff: The Correlian Courier Corvette or nicknamed simply „3C“ was a small, but very fast courier and surveillance vessel that was often used by Rebel spies and smugglers. 

With a length of 31.6m the Correlian Courier Corvette could hold three crew members and up to four passengers or a simelar amount of small sized cargo.
The ship was equiped with a Nexan hyperdrive and extensive set of long range sensors that could be used for transmitting or monitoring sources from long distances. The later ability made this ship a preferred asset for spies as it could jump into a remote part of a system, assess the situation and transmissions in a short time and then jump away before (Imperial) patrol crafts where able to arrive. Should the 3C be attacked it could defend itself with two forward laser cannons and a twin laser cannon turret on the upper hull.

The model: The model is entirely scratchbuild and consists of a main body made of the rear end of a Gundam twin gatling gun plus several parts of the biotoxin plant set for the engine and cockpit. The rest of the model was layered with bits from various sources. The base was scratchbuild from plastic card.
In game: The Correlian Courier Corvette is a ship that emphasizes speed but not manouverability. It is more suited to shake off pursuers rather than to engage in a dog fight. The 3C can defend itself 360° around however its armament is relatively weak. However it can use its crew and sensor options to give itself an edge in combat or boost its offensive capabilities and furthermore support its own fleet from afar. So far I have created four custom pilot cards for the 3C and some other necessary tokens.

Well hope you like it! Next week the Correlian Courier Corvette will hopefully be battle tested!

Cheers
invivos